


Different Strokes

by ishandahalf



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Art, Artist Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Muses, Romance, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27332971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishandahalf/pseuds/ishandahalf
Summary: First it was just his hand mixing new colours before he even knew what he was doing. Then it was distracting images in his mind’s eye - brief glimpses of fingers, or a shoulder blade, or a pair of lips… And then they were on the canvas in front of Joe before he could stop himself.ORAn artist finally meets his muse.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 18
Kudos: 224





	Different Strokes

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since watching The Old Guard this summer, Nicky and Joe have lived rent-free in my head. Did I need a new fandom? Not really. Did I dive in head-first and devour everything I could? You betcha. Did I think I’d get inspired and feel the urge to churn out some fic about these two? Nope, and yet, ~5000 words later suddenly here we are. Please enjoy.

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

 _“Rub thine eyes, and behold the image of the heart, the image of the heart.”_ _\- Rumi_

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

“Well, this is... different.”

There was no response to Booker’s surprised comment as he took in the countless canvases propped against every conceivable inch of space in Joe’s studio. He didn’t know whether he was referring more to the subject matter or the sheer quantity - honestly, both were slightly out of the ordinary for Joe.

The artist himself remained silent, totally focused on trying to mix the perfect shade onto his palette (it reminded Booker of sea glass). With Joe absorbed in his task, he carefully navigated around him, working his way through the maze of new paintings. A lovingly detailed hand here, a broad set of bare shoulders there. A flexed arm, a bent leg. All still in Joe’s signature style, with sweeping lines and bold colours - but odd given his previous insistence on avoiding people and portraiture. Even more peculiar were the combinations of cool colours, with greys, blues, and greens everywhere - a distinct departure from the name one Yusuf Al-Kaysani had made for himself with his use of hot, fiery tones.

“I assume I don’t need to remind you that you have a show coming up?” Sebastien asked, making his way back behind his friend. Looking over his shoulder at the painting Joe was currently working on, he took in the large eye gazing back out from the canvas. Judging by the unique colour, it was the same ocean-eye as on at least a dozen of the other canvases around them. “And I thought we’d agreed with Quynh on a landscape series, to tie into the exhibit on the steppes she has going on?”

“We did agree on landscapes, yes,” Joe nodded distractedly, his attention on adding small flecks of light to the eye in front of him. “But this is what she’ll be getting. You know I have to go with my inspiration, Book.”

That was indeed something Sebastien knew all too well from his years as Joe’s agent, as well as his friend - the man painted whatever he was feeling. It was just rare that the results came out so… unexpectedly. “And just who _is_ this inspiration? Did you meet somebody?”

“No, I haven’t. I honestly have no idea where this is all coming from,” Joe sighed, finally stepping back from the easel and dropping his brush into a nearby bucket. Pointing towards the back corner where he’d stacked some dry canvases, he explained, “I did start out with some landscapes, like we talked about. A bit different than the usual, maybe, because I kept mixing blues and greens for some reason, and that was fine. I liked how they came out, so why not expand my colour range a bit?”

“Nothing wrong with wanting to explore a new oeuvre,” Sebastien nodded sagely. “But how did all _this_ come about?” He gestured vaguely to the collection of painted body parts. 

“I wish I knew,” came Joe’s resigned groan. “First it was just my hand mixing these new colours before I even knew what I was doing. Then it was these distracting images in my mind’s eye - brief glimpses of fingers, or a shoulder blade, or a pair of lips… And they are on the canvas in front of me before I can stop myself.” Throwing his head back exasperatedly, Joe swiped his hands roughly over his beard. “It is always pieces, never the whole. I am trying to put them all together, but I can’t. Whoever my mystery muse is, I cannot see him.”

“I think you see him plenty,” Booker huffed, scanning the paintings around him and quickly counting, wondering whether there would even be enough space in Quynh’s gallery to hang half of them. His fingers itched to reach for the flask in his jacket pocket, anticipating the angry call he was sure to get from her.

Joe shook his head in frustration. “I have to keep going. I think if I can keep going I will see him eventually…”

“Do you think this _eventually_ will happen in time for you to produce a few more landscapes for the show?” Sebastien asked hopefully, though he was not expecting an answer in the affirmative. Joe was never one to force his art or bend it to other people’s whims; whatever he was feeling, whatever was inspiring him at the time, that was what he ended up creating. 

“Who knows,” the artist shrugged, now seemingly unconcerned as he pulled a blank canvas onto his easel and reached for a clean brush. His attention was quickly diverted away from Booker once again.

When the first few sweeping strokes quickly took the gentle shape of the shell of an ear, Sebastien let out a weary sigh and turned towards the door. “You’re going to be the one breaking this news to Quynh then!” he called on his way out.

“You’re my agent - isn’t that what I pay you for?”

“I don’t get paid nearly enough to face Quynh’s wrath,” he muttered, adding a few French curses under his breath. Joe didn’t respond, already lost in his next creation.

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

“This _is_ different.”

Quynh was well used to dealing with the whims of capricious artists, but the fact that it was now Joe who was very close to making her eyelid involuntarily twitch with irritation was not something she would have expected. Maybe it was the fact that he was always so easy to work with, always coming up with enough pieces, on time, that were fresh and new and that pleased both him as a creator and the clientele of her gallery.

These pieces were certainly fresh, and new, and he looked very satisfied with his output - but that output was not what they had agreed upon. As she looked through the crates he had delivered to her, flipping through the first set of canvases, she saw a few landscapes as expected - but those quickly transitioned into seascapes, and then into something else entirely.

She frowned, more in confusion than disappointment. “Booker had warned me that this collection would be a departure for you, but I wasn’t expecting this.”

“Neither was I,” Joe admitted. “But this is what my soul told me to create.”

“Your soul couldn’t have been more cooperative with my theme?” she grumbled, but without any true malice. She had never been one to argue against artistic inspiration when it struck. “Or how about being considerate of space constraints?” she added, looking at the multiple crates still being wheeled in through the doors. “Holy shit Joe, how many paintings did you bring me? This is way more than I had asked for.”

Joe threw his hands up innocently. “I’m sorry, I truly didn’t realize I had created so much. It all just… spilled out of me? I think I painted most of these before I even realized it, and then went right on to the next.” 

Looking at her friend’s tired eyes, Quynh wondered just how often that had happened, about how many nights had found him painting straight through or forgetting to break for meals. “Are… are you okay? This all seems a bit unusual for you.”

“I’m fine,” he brushed her off, flashing her an easy-going grin, but the tone of his voice still sounded odd to her. Rushed, maybe, as if he had somewhere else to be. The tapping of his hands against his leg added to the sense that he was impatient, restless about something.

“If you’re sure,” Quynh muttered, clearly not believing him but choosing to leave the interrogation for another time. “Now, if this is it, I am going to very kindly kick you out of my gallery now. I will have to do some major rearranging to make these all fit.”

Joe nodded, but before taking his leave he furrowed his brow and quietly noted, “The crates are all numbered, and inside the canvas are in chronological order. I was thinking that would make for the most coherent flow through the exhibition.”

Quynh glanced over at him in surprise. Much like she wasn’t one to harangue Joe for his creative choices, he had never been one to be picky about how his works were shown, always trusting her vision and saying that his pieces spoke for themselves no matter the surroundings. 

“It’s important,” he added, after she let her silence hang in the air between them. “I think… I don’t know why, but I think it’s important.”

“Chronological order, though?” she frowned. “Isn’t that a bit… uninspired?”

“For you perhaps,” Joe stated, his voice full of certainty now, sounding more like his usual confident self. “This is how the pieces came to me, it is how they flow. It’s all building to something.”

“Building to what?”

“Ah, well, that I don’t know yet,” he confessed, unable to meet Quynh’s eyes. “But… can you also leave an empty spot at the very end, please?”

Quynh’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

“I’m still trying to finish one last piece.”

“Joe, you never leave a piece so last-minute!” she cried, darting over to smack his arm. She hated preparing for shows when she was missing pieces, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had agreed to do such a thing - something she was very sure Joe was aware of. “Seriously, is everything alright?”

“...I don’t know,” he now confessed, tensely shrugging his shoulders. It looked as though constant late nights and endless hours in front of the easel were doing a number on his muscles, but Quynh didn’t think that was going to stop any time soon - particularly if he was still finishing up a work. “Please? If you can? There is just one piece missing, and I know it will come to me. It just hasn’t yet.”

“Only for you, Joe, only for you,” she grumbled, throwing her hands up in defeat. The worry on her face ebbed a little when he wrapped his arms around in one of his enormous hugs, before he loped out the door and back to his studio. But as Quynh flipped through the rest of the canvases he’d left behind, the sense that there was something she wasn’t quite understanding behind this new collection only grew. 

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

“So, this is different.”

Andy’s words startled Nicky. He jolted up from where he was hunched over his desk, the pen held in his hand being dragged harshly off the notepad in front of him. She didn’t feel bad about it - from what she could see, the page was full of indecipherable scribbles anyway and a jagged line slashed across it had no impact. 

“Andy, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” he apologized, blinking slowly and looking over at where she leaned against his office door. “How long have you been standing there? Were you knocking?”

“When do I ever knock?” she scoffed, walking inside while waving a copy of a journal manuscript in his direction. “And this - _this_ is different.”

“Were my comments not helpful?” he frowned. 

“Sure, the few you made were. But I’m used to so much red ink on these things that the pages look like they’re bleeding.” Nicky was her go-to colleague for editing her articles, he could hone in on superfluous information, missed citations, and specious arguments with a sniper’s precision. But this latest attempt was nowhere near his usual calibre.

“Maybe your writing is just improving,” he mused, a tiny smile working at the corners of his mouth. The amusement didn’t quite reach his eyes - or maybe it was the dark circles under them, recently deeper and darker than usual, that made it seem so.

“Or maybe you’re distracted,” Andy all but accused, striding over to his desk. “Is something going on?”

“I’m fine,” Nicky insisted, waving her off.

“Really? Then what do you call these?” she asked, flicking her fingers at the margins of the pages. They were full of endless curlicues and loops, on page after page. “I know I make fun of your awful handwriting, but did you have a stroke and can’t write actual words anymore? Are these supposed to mean something?”

Nicky frowned, and didn’t meet her gaze. “They are just… doodles.”

“...Doodles?”

“Yes,” he nodded, as if this was the only clarification required. 

“Doodles,” Andy echoed flatly. It was in no way a sufficient explanation for her. “You don’t doodle. You are not artistic. At all. I have seen you embarrass yourself at Pictionary. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so much as doodle the entire time I’ve known you. ...And you’re doodling _right now!_ ” she cried, pointing accusingly down at the pen in his hand, adding another little nest of curls onto the page in front of him.

“ _Damn it!_ ” Nicky cursed in Italian under his breath, as if he honestly hadn’t realized what his hand was doing. He crumpled up the paper and threw it directly into the trash can. 

“Nicky, seriously, what’s going on?” Andy wondered. Rarely had she seen her friend so flustered. 

“I have no idea,” he groaned, flinging the pen down with force before dragging both hands over his face. “I just find myself drawing these little curls, over and over again. At first it was just here and there, but it is happening more and more often now. I cannot seem to stop myself.”

Andy didn’t think he was exaggerating. Looking over the mess on his desk, she could see tight, compact coils scribbled somewhere on practically every paper in sight. “Um, I was joking about you having a stroke earlier, but maybe you should go see a doctor or something? This sort of - I don’t know, compulsion? - probably isn’t normal.”

“I’m sure it will pass,” Nicky insisted, brushing aside her concerns as usual. “It is probably too much caffeine; it is making me jittery.”

“Right, sure,” she rolled her eyes, which noticed his hand slowly inching towards his pen again. “Look, whatever is distracting you, maybe I can try and distract you from that? Aside from hoping for more comments on this article, I came in here to see if you wanted to come to the opening of Quynh’s new exhibition on Friday night.”

“You want me to come to Quynh’s new exhibition opening,” he repeated suspiciously. “You are inviting me to an art gallery after telling me I am one of the least artistic people you know?”

“Just because you aren’t artistic doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate art,” Andy pointed out. “The artist is a friend of hers - I’ve seen his stuff, it’s good. I think you might like it, actually. But even if you don’t, who cares? You can spend an evening somewhere other than cloistered in this office, with free finger food and champagne. And nothing to doodle on. Unless you want to get tackled by a security guard.”

“I’ll think about it,” Nicky said, not looking too enthused about the idea - but that had never stopped Andy from strong-arming him into things before. 

Andy promised to email the event details and headed back to the door - and then pretended not to notice when she looked back on her way out and saw Nicky pull out the balled up paper from the trash, trying to smooth it out before placing it into his desk drawer. Yes, he definitely needed to get out more. She would be dragging him to the gallery whether he liked it or not.

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

This was different. The opening of an art exhibit was not Nicky’s usual type of event. Beyond knowing nothing about art, the thought of making insipid small talk with pretentious strangers filled him with dread. 

No, perhaps that was too harsh. He chided himself for his uncharitable thoughts, shaking his head. He had not felt himself lately, some sort of strange, unnamed tension coiling in his stomach over the past few days. 

He was relieved when Andy abandoned him immediately after hauling him in through the doors, off to find Quynh. He was normally a quiet man, but together with the odd restlessness he had been feeling, he knew he would not make for a good conversation partner that night. This was an excellent excuse to simply look at the art, alone.

His fingers twitched, as if they wanted to wrap around a pen again. He managed to still them by grabbing a champagne flute off a nearby table instead. There were rooms to both the left and the right of the entranceway; Nicky knew there were two artists being showcased and wasn’t sure which was the friend of Quynh that Andy had mentioned. He decided it didn’t matter and just let himself be steered to his right, making his way over to the first piece in that room. 

The canvas on the wall was a striking landscape. At a glance it seemed like it should imbue a sense of almost frantic energy from its bold colours, but what Nicky felt when he looked at it was a sudden sense of peace. 

He stood silently in front of it for nearly five minutes, trying to take in every individual brush stroke, before he was accidentally jostled by somebody walking behind him and he snapped back to reality. 

He decided to move to the next piece. Another landscape - a vast, empty scene that spoke of searching, of yearning, but again Nicky felt a strange sense of contentment as he stared at it.

That time it wasn’t a physical push that propelled him to the following piece, but rather some deeper, intrinsic pull. He needed to see the next work.

Nicky let himself be lured from one canvas to the next, taking in the progression. First the landscapes turned to seascapes, the openness of steppes and fields transitioning into vast, endless views of water. The swirls of bright blue reminded him of home.

Had he not been spending so much time drinking in every last inch of each canvas he might not have noticed the faint grey shadows that began to seep into them. First they were kept to the backgrounds, but as he went along these strange silhouettes moved more and more to the forefront, as if somebody was hovering just outside the frames, or even just behind the artist’s back. Perhaps it was Nicky’s innate sense of _somebody_ being present there in these works, some unnamed and unseen presence despite no physical indication of a person being painted, that made the eventual transition from the land and seascapes less jarring.

First a hand, lovingly rendered. Then another, with a different grip. Then another - or no, the _same_ one - this time reaching out in a gentle caress. 

They continued: a pale shoulder, a sweeping clavicle, a stretched neck with a pulsing vein. A foot, a calf, a tempting glimpse of a strong thigh. 

There was no overt indication of it, but Nicky's intuition told him that they were all of the same person. Nor was there anything distinctly intimate or sexual about any of the paintings, but he could sense the passion there, permeating it all. 

The gentle curve of an ear, the small smirk of a pair of lips. The back of a man’s head, his brown hair nicely tousled. 

Nicky felt his heart start to beat a bit faster.

Then he was fairly certain he felt it stop when he moved to stand in front of the last wall, filled almost entirely, floor to ceiling, with paintings of eyes. An empty space remained in the centre, as if the tableau was incomplete, but Nicky’s gaze was drawn everywhere around it, to the canvases with eyes showing every possible emotion. The same strange-coloured eyes, over and over, but somehow a deft hand had managed to show amusement in one, laughter in another, contemplation in that one, adoration in that other. 

His feet unconsciously propelled him closer, until he was but a step away from an image of two ocean-eyes staring right back at him. It was like looking in a mirror. 

He clenched his jaw. 

“Holy shit,” came a low mutter from beside him, Andy having suddenly reappeared. Nicky didn’t dare tear his gaze away from the wall, but he could perceive a few other people having followed her over and standing around him. 

“What is it?” asked a lightly accented woman’s voice. Quynh, perhaps? Andy was too busy staring back and forth between Nicky’s face and the wall of eyes to make any introductions. 

“...Nicky, you haven’t been moonlighting as a model in the art department, have you?” she wondered tentatively.

“No, I have not,” he answered, a small twitch at the corner of his lips. 

“Oh, this is Nicky? Andy has told me much about you, I have been waiting to meet you,” Quynh cried, pleasantly surprised. She maneuvered around Andy to stand in front of him - he still hadn’t looked away from the wall (he was being rude, some faraway part of him realized) - and was about to extend her arms for a hug when she finally took in his face. She froze, looked at him carefully, and then turned to glance at the paintings behind her. “... _Oh_.”

“Quynh, I’m sorry it has taken us this long to finally meet, and I would very much like to get to know you,” Nicky managed to speak, his tone coming out much calmer than he felt. “But first I need to know who painted these.”

“His name is Yusuf Al-Kaysani,” the man who had walked up with the women explained, while taking a swig from a flask. “But he goes by Joe with us. He’s around here somewhere, I think he rushed off to one of the studios in the back a while ago babbling something about the last piece finally coming to him.” He scoffed a bit. “Artists! Always at the mercy of their muses.”

Had Nicky noticed the dumbfounded looks and rolled eyes that Andy and Quynh gave the Frenchman he would have been amused - but his focus was still elsewhere.

“I think I need to meet this artist.”

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

This was… different. Joe had never been the stereotypical tortured or reclusive artist, the type who hid away from the world. Almost the opposite, in fact - he loved making the rounds at his shows, hearing what people thought about his latest creations and getting a glimpse into how they interpreted his work. But not tonight. Tonight found him hijacking one of Quynh’s back rooms, digging frantically through whatever oils she had on hand, and practically throwing them onto the first canvas he could find. 

Booker was probably going to kill him for abandoning him out there, but Joe didn’t care. Something had possessed him, the same sense of urgency that had led to his prolific output over the past few weeks - but now even stronger. Never had he felt such a desperate drive to let an image flow from his hands. 

He had been proud of his new collection - not that he would have allowed Quynh to show the works if he weren’t. Something about the pieces spoke to him, more than anything else he had created in recent years… But what exactly they spoke to him about felt hushed, like whispered tones that were slowly revealing some sort of deep secret. It was that secret he hadn’t been quite able to decipher. 

It was tonight that the secret finally felt like it was about to reveal itself.

Joe furiously mixed colours on his palette, barely thinking about what he was doing. He let his brush dance over the canvas, bringing a form to life. He started at the bottom, with feet planted in a steady stance, before working his way up muscled legs, to tapered hips, to a solid torso. 

Yes, _finally_ , it was all coming together. The mysterious muse that had been just out of reach, teasing him with disparate glimpses of individual exquisite portions but never the whole, was finally beginning to unveil himself. 

Broad shoulders emerged, followed by strong arms, a lean neck, and finally his face. Individually, Joe had seen all these features before - they just hadn’t seemed to fit together until now. The kind smile slotted in under the prominent nose, the contemplative brow tucked under sandy hair, and finally, _finally_ , those fathomless eyes came to life amidst the rest. 

The eyes had been a struggle, constantly shifting between emotions and colours whenever he saw them in his mind. The sheer number of times he had tried to mimic them _just so_ , only to find himself somehow unsatisfied, always finding some spark of life _missing_ … Well, the entire wall of his attempts outside could attest to that. But now, as he added the final specks of light to that penetrating gaze, he knew this was the one.

And, just when Joe felt that he could truly _breathe_ for the first time in weeks, a tentative knock came from behind him, followed by a soft clearing of a throat. 

Joe smiled and let out a contented sigh. He dropped his brush and stepped back from the easel to provide an unobstructed view, but didn’t yet turn to see who was there. 

He didn’t need to.

“Do you like it?” he asked, genuinely curious and utterly hopeful. 

“Very much,” came the earnest reply, as steady footsteps neared him. 

Something burst in Joe’s chest at his words, closely followed by a pang of wanting. Suddenly he _wanted_ , wanted and _needed_ to turn around and see if the true version of this man came anywhere close to the ideal he had been painting. 

And so he turned, knowing with absolute certainty whom he would see, but still feeling like all the air had left his body at seeing this man, this beautiful man, standing within arm’s reach of him - standing there corporeal, living, breathing, and _real_. 

Joe couldn’t help but exhale in satisfaction, a smile breaking out across this face, and the other man did the same.

“You must be the mysterious artist everybody outside is talking about,” he stated calmly, as if nothing about the situation they found themselves was unusual. “Yusuf Al-Kaysani?”

“Yes, or Joe if you prefer.” He brushed a hand through his hair, abruptly nervous. “I’m sorry, I feel at a bit of a disadvantage - may I get the name of my muse?”

“Nicky,” the other man replied, his stare moving away from Joe’s face for the first time to follow his hand as it ran through his curls. It then boomeranged back to meet Joe as he added, “Nicolò di Genova.”

“It is _very_ nice to finally meet you, Nicolò,” Joe murmured, vaguely wondering whether he should move to shake his hand - but somehow that felt both too intimate and not intimate enough.

“I hope you don’t mind me interrupting. Your friends told me where you were. I think they are worried what people will think, with the man of the hour having disappeared.”

“I am only worried about what one person will think,” said Joe, somewhat nervously. “Tell me, you were out in the gallery - did you like the show?”

“Yes,” Nicky nodded quickly, and Joe felt relief flood him. “I have to admit, I am no expert in the arts. I cannot speak intelligently about your style or technique, but I _can_ speak to how I felt when I saw your work.”

“And how was that?”

Nicky took his time answering, as if choosing his words carefully. “...Calm. Settled. Sure. Like I finally understood.” Then came an infinitesimal quirk of the corner of his mouth, one Joe likely wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t drinking in every single microscopic motion of the man in front of him. “Perhaps I should have been surprised, or shocked, coming here tonight and finding pieces of myself in your art, but instead it felt… inevitable.”

Joe nodded, now understanding that feeling of inevitability. That was something that could not have been said even mere minutes ago. “Does it bother you? That I painted you?” he wondered, suddenly worried. 

“Not at all. Perhaps I _should_ be uncomfortable about it, being the centre of attention like this, but I am flattered to be the object of such…” Nicky paused, searching for the right word again - though this time perhaps with a bit more uncertainty. “...Devotion?”

“Yes, devotion,” came Joe’s instantaneous agreement, in no way wanting Nicolò to think it was anything less sacred than that. “Compulsion, maybe, too - but yes, devotion over all else.” 

The small upturn of one corner of Nicky’s lips slowly started migrating, working its way to the other side. “I almost feel I should apologize? I too have felt that same compulsion lately, I empathize with the frustration.” His eyes flitted up to Joe’s curls, sparking with something - realization, Joe wondered? - as they roved over him, a full smile blooming across his face. It sent a spark of joy careening through every corner of Joe’s body. “I must have taken up quite a bit of your time lately.”

“Do not ever apologize for that,” Joe insisted. “Well, maybe to Booker and Quynh, they have been stressing about the show and the departure from my usual style for weeks now.” 

“But not you?” Nicky wondered, boldly taking a step towards him. 

“Not entirely. As you said, there was frustration on my part too,” Joe admitted after a beat, distracted by the other man’s body in such close proximity now, near enough to feel his warmth permeating, percolating within him. It made him smile in contentment. “But I have always tried to paint my feelings, to paint what was in my heart. I see now that this was no different.”

One last question burned inside of him. Summoning the strength to pull himself away slightly, Joe pivoted, turning to face his latest canvas again and placing himself next to Nicky. It did not seem he was strong enough to move too far, staying close enough to feel the other man’s arm brush against his as they stood side by side.

“Do you think I’ve captured you?” he asked, waving at the piece but not looking at it. Instead he looked only at Nicolò and held his breath.

Nicky only took in the painting for a split second before turning his head towards Joe. He took his hand from where they were hanging tantalizingly close to each other's. He clasped it as his jaw clenched around his true, steady words. “You’ve captured me completely.”

☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾ ￮ ☽￮☾

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my first fic foray into this fandom. I’m not saying I’m desperate for validation or anything, but kudos and comments will give me life.


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